Search This Blog

Best enjoy slowly: Cesis, Latvia!

Cesis, people enjoy nice view

It happened one day… We came back from Estonia and stayed in Valmiera, city in Latvia, which is located in one hour driving by car from Riga. Weather was raining and we had a free time. In Valmiera we already have been in different places and were thinking how could we to spend our time by interesting way and with so much fun. Our Latvian friend recommended us to go to the nearest city to Valmiera, which is Cesis (just 30 km far from us).

There is beginning to everything. The city and area is quite interesting, as we realized later, with history more than eight hundred years. So, we arrived by car with a driver Yanis from Valmiera (he was being our guide in Cesis, originally from Valmiera) to the centre. I was being with friends from Ukraine (Eleonora), Mexico (Ramon), and Germany (Ana). Our journey has started…'

Livonian Castle in the park, more than 800 years old

And from the first step we were impressed by view: it was a big green Castle park (because of castle is there) with a river, which sometimes looks like a small lake. There also we saw black and white swans, nice fountains and very old castle. This is the most ornate park in the city, and a popular place for leisure activities. In that romantic place were so many brightly flowering bushes and flowers, benches, pergolas, bridges and pavilions.

Eleonora found own grandfather :-)

After Castle Park, where we have taken many pictures, we came to St. John’s Church, seven
hundred years old building in gothic style. The silhouette of this church in the panorama of the city is unique – Cesis’ skyline cannot be confused with that of any other city. As our guide told us, the church has always been the pride of the city – an internal witness to change in time. In as a part of this building is a 65-metre tower, call St. John’s Church sire and we were on the top. What is so great view was opened for us, when we reached the highest point! We could see more than 10 km further, most of this view has green color, its because of forest. Nature..

going to explore livonian castle and find treasures

Then we moved directly to the stone castle of the Livonian Order. The Cesis castle is the most impressive and best-preserved set of castle ruins in Latvia, and it is certainly the most popular attraction in the old part of Cesis. Yeah, in that castle Livonian Order had in the entire Baltic Region and this place has already more than eight hundred years history.. Firstly we thought, that price for visiting this place supposed to be good, like five or ten Euros, but when asked for ticket, realized for students they ask only one Lat (close one and half euro). So, we were nice surprised because of price. This castle had five towers, and we were in two of them: West Tower and South Tower. In West Tower I found very interesting master’s room, which was on the second or main floor. Everyone has a candle, which we used during movement by narrow dark corridors. I really got a feeling myself like in the Middle Ages. After that we went to another place, which is South Tower. That one is famous because of under the first floor of the South Tower was a basement that appropriate for use as a prison. Some tourists from UK turn off the light for a little time and all of us got a real experience of prisoners..

After Livonian Order’s Castle we said “bye-bye” to enigmatic Cesis-city and driven to explore a beautiful nature around this place. By the way I and friends visited Red cliff near Gauja River. The cliff contain a great deal in the way of iron compounds, it makes sand with red color. For me it was very interesting, because I’ve never in my life seen red cliff.

Sergii didn't realized yet, why sand has a red color

Then we went to Kaleju cave, which is near the Strikupe River (only 10 km long, but one of Latvia’s clearest rivers). Kaleju cave means Blackmith’s cave, and it probably does not mean that a blacksmith ever lived there. There is active suffusion (a process by which underground water from partially melted ground ice bursts through the upper surface, carrying out with it a deposit of mud, sand, rock, or other such material) in the cave, and the entrance is becoming increasingly loose. There Yanis gave us a lantern and I with Eleonora, Ramon tried to go further, inside cave. But we didn’t move more than 5 meters, it’s because of a narrow, wet and low passage. By the way, we didn’t lose opportunity to take pictures of this great place.

Finally, we came back to Valmiera full of great impressions of historical and natural places in Cesis. I am really impressed a nature and friendly people there, how people can do “green”, live “green”, be “green”, - as much as possible close to nature and respect history. It was being a wonderful time and fun with friends from different countries. Best enjoy slowly!